With today’s news that Talebones is ceasing operations as a magazine, I figured I’d better publish this post — which I’d written a few days ago and in which Talebones was still listed as a survivor — before I have to make any more changes to it.
I was recently going through some notes — a big notebook full of semi-legible 2 AM scrawl containing the little rude germs of story ideas, character sketches, and gibberish in the form of made-up words — and I happened upon a list of target markets from around two years ago. These are (or were, I’ll get to that) places I wanted to send fiction to, and roughly correspond to the most attractive semi-pro and smaller SF magazines that I found appealing. In other words, the big three (or four) aren’t on this list, nor are the UK’s handful of pro mags, as these are all markets that mostly pay less than pro rates. Why these fourteen markets were all listed together in the last page of my battered notebook, why I was particularly interested in them, is because they are print markets.
Of these fourteen markets, nine are now gone.
That’s a pretty appalling casualty rate and, while I won’t pretend my list was somehow exhaustive, it was based on a lot of time trawling market listings and reading magazines. In fact, of these fourteen magazines, I’ve read copies of all but one of them and had or have subscriptions to close to half — so it wasn’t just an idle listing of markets for me to pester, it was a list of places that were publishing the fiction I enjoyed, as well.
First, the good news. Black Gate, number one on the list, is still going strong on a semi-annual basis. Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, GUD, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine round out the honor roll of survivors. All of these magazines except for GUD have a fairly established history as print magazines, which no doubt helps. Special congratulations to GUD for being a relative newcomer with some stamina — as the rest of this list shows, newcomers haven’t fared well.
A look at a couple of these dead markets shows magazines that only lasted for a bare handful of issues: Grendelsong, All Possible Worlds, Fictitious Force, and Blood, Blade, and Thruster. I own and have read copies of all of these magazines expect All Possible Worlds, which came and went so fast I never really had a chance. 
They all had potential — BBT had real eye-candy appeal with its gorgeous covers, Fictitious Force had stories accompanied by author essays and a quirky ‘tall’ format that was actually easier to read than the full-sized floppy magazine equivalent, and Grendelsong published an appealing mix of myth-inspired, fantastic contemporary, and secondary world fantasy stories.
Then there were the magazines that seemed to have more than potential, they actually seemed to have a fighting chance. City Slab was the most long-running of those, an urban horror zine with a fetish-wear aesthetic that gave it some indie shelf-appeal. Dark Wisdom (formerly the Book of Dark Wisdom) had a strong Cthulhu mythos theme and slick presentation but seemed to run into trouble after about a half-dozen issues. Apex Digest, a science fiction horror magazine, would have fooled any betting man with its strong twelve issue run but, alas, it was not to be. Surviving in an online form (which, increasingly in the case of magazines, is looking more like a sign of a pre-terminal condition than real survival, though there are always exceptions such as Fantasy Magazine) for another year or so, it just recently went on ‘indefinite hiatus.’ At least the folks at Apex still retain their book publishing arm, as a lot of good stuff comes out of there.
Talebones, the demise of which I’ve just heard about today, has been around for years and managed to produce thirty seven issues. Trade-sized, bi-annual (though not initially), Talebones published speculative fiction with a dark edge to it. Containing great interior artwork and fantastic covers, as well as consistently strong and interesting stories, this little semi-pro looked and read better than the dowdy old big three digest magazines and seemed more receptive to new voices as well.
And then there is Paradox. Number one on my list of markets where I would have liked to see my work was Black Gate, but Paradox was number two, so seeing it go is a real loss for me — especially as I never managed to sell any stories to them. It was a magazine specializing in fiction with a historical bent but open to speculative elements — so you might have a straight history, an alternate future, and a historical fantasy all in the same issue. No other magazine really had this, and from its theme, design, and selection Paradox really distinguished itself as something special. Though we should be seeing some anthologies from Paradox in the future, the magazine will be missed.
Many of these magazines intend to reboot as anthology series, which I think is great news and probably a more viable model with the rise of POD. But I really would hate to see semipro print magazines disappear completely and be replaced with semipro anthologies — while short fiction may be served either way, I still feel diving into the latest issue of a magazine is an aesthetically different experience from reading short stories in book form. It’s an experience I’d like to see preserved.
We could talk about the reasons for all these market closings — which I’m sure vary on a case-by-case basis but all boil down ultimately to time and money — but I don’t see the point. I could say something like all you wannabe writers out there (myself included) need to subscribe to these magazines to keep them alive, but even that doesn’t work. Magazines need more than just writers in their audience to stay viable but, on the other hand, they need more than just an enthusiastic amateur who thinks they’ll make their investment back after one issue at the helm, too. Some new markets will always die because of lack of planning, the real tragedy is seeing the death of one of those zines that got past the initial hurdles long enough to gain reader confidence — when one of those goes, we’re all poorer for it.
But there is some good news on the print magazine front. Murky Depths, which I don’t think was around when I made my list or was at least off my radar, is a slick print magazine out of the UK with great shelf-appeal and design. Shroud and Doorways are new dark fiction magazines with a great look, both of which seem to have taken off with a strong start.
And there are print zines that I either left off my list of years ago that are still around, or else have cropped up in the meantime: Albedo One, On Spec, Electric Velocipede, Shimmer, Tales of the Talisman, and Neo-Opsis. I just received the first issue of a brand new zine, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, in the mail, and it looks good, and I’m also continually impressed with the little horror quarterly Morpheus Tales, which has put out five issues so far. And two quirky ‘paperzines’ that have real indie appeal are Kaleidotrope and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.
So, things aren’t all bleak, but they certainly don’t justify any boundless optimism, either. While I’m sure I missed some markets here and there (especially in the case of POD or Lulu-based mags), and haven’t even mentioned the prozines that are still limping along with fewer subscribers every year, I think the collapse of some of the biggest of the little magazines in the last few years may be a sign of things to come. Let’s hope I’m wrong about that.
For more about the world of semiprozines check out the wonderful site Save the Semiprozine Hugo.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m often amazed at the names of some of these magazines. I understand that they are labors of love, and I understand that they come from a tradition of names such as Amazing, Astounding, Galaxy, Future, Bizarre Tales, Science Fantasy – but what ‘undeducated’ reader is going to touch any of these ‘names’ on the stand? Yes, artwork helps define things, and a quick flip through the contents/editorial will give you a good idea, but I (almost) honestly believe that if a print SF/F/H mag were titled ‘PEOPLE’ or ‘LIFE’ – it would sell a hell of a lot better on the name alone.
I never really thought about that, I guess because I ‘speak the language’ as it were. But you’re right — though, with distribution as it is, I can’t think it would matter too much as I’ve not seen a single fiction magazine in any book store or newsstand around me in the last five years or more (not that I’ve made a scientific study of it or anything).
I am tempted to surmise that the days of general appeal for much of our entertainment may be rapidly moving into the past, though of course what we mean by ‘general’ can be defined in a lot of ways. I do think you are right though that a more approachable model could pay dividends in gaining a larger audience but, by the same token, I think the days of popular magazine fiction are essentially dead and buried. I think what needs to be determined is if going to an extreme, or maintaining a more conservative approach, is the way to carve out a viable (sustainable, profitable) niche audience.
It could very well be though that the present magazine markets — staffed by scholars and critics, read almost exclusively by an audience of would-be writers and old guard — are built primarily on the remembrance and romance of the heady days of pulp when the short fiction game actually commanded a broad audience. If that’s the case, then the whole field is essentially the nostalgic afterglow of a dead time, a mutual delusion for those of us that grew up relishing not just the fiction of that age, but the tales of heroic word counts, pennies-per-word, marathon writing sessions, and single, immortal short stories heralding the career-birth of giants.
Damn, and I was trying NOT to be cynical about this, thanks a lot Steve!
Thanks for the mention of GUD! We’ve put out five issues and are working on the sixth and seventh, ever hopeful, ever broke
. We’d love to go quarterly if we could just sell enough magazines to finance it *puppy face*.
I’ve never even heard of these magazines…
But anyway, that is sad.
Bill, thanks for the love!
spamwarrior–how can we (and I mean “we” as a member of “these magazines”) reach you? 
Thanks for the shout-out to Kaleidotrope, Bill! The zine really is a labor of love, kept afloat by support like this. It can be tough out there for print publications — postage and production costs keep going up, even when readership numbers don’t, and it’s sad when a great venue like Talebones closes down — but there’s no lack of great writing out there that’s worth sharing.
Of course, I hope people will check out some of that writing in Kaleidotrope. Issue #6 just came out in April, and the two before that have fun stories by Bill himself.
And, like Kaolin Fire, I’m curious how we can reach more people — specifically people who are interested and invested in the genre, but who maybe haven’t heard of any of the magazines mentioned above.
Interesting post, but I’ll have to say some of the new magazines you mention as apparently going strong are, in fact, seemingly on shaky ground. One is begging for money via “discount” subs for cash flow to pay OLD outstanding bills and not answering queries, while another is simply not answering subs or queries.
I guess my point here is just because a magazine has a nice spiffy listing on ralan’s or duotrope and seems to be around for longer than six months doesn’t meant it’s really going to be around another six months. There are easily identifiable warning signs that seem to be universal…
Kaolin & Fred, I’d be curious how to get the word out to — but I suppose that really is the 64 million dollar question everybody has been wondering. Aside from getting yourselves on a reality TV show, I don’t have any ideas.
Lawrence, I hadn’t any idea of that, I’ll admit my roundup of extant print mags at the end of the piece wasn’t based on exhaustive, up-to-the-minute research, but from what you’re saying sounds like we may have a few more names to add to the dead pile in future.
I don’t think the outlook is completely bleak (am I contradicting myself? I’m allowed to do that), but print is taking a hit. Whether it rebounds, or we see e-zines expand, or, indeed, whether this is just all a natural boom/bust cycle that we (or just me) are too close to to look at objectively, time will tell.
This feels to me like one more victim of our current age of technology-in-transition. As with record stores and bookstores (and records and books), this is a very difficult time for anyone looking to sell ideas in a physical medium. Obviously, as ever more people switch to online sources, the cost of production and printing goes up…and as fewer people rely on newsstands (I can’t tell you the last time I’ve even seen one of those outside of NYC) or bricks & mortar, the printed stuff that does exist has precious little opportunity to penetrate the market. In this scenario, the chance of genre fiction zines ending up in the hands of a casual non-genre fan is somewhat remote.
Do I think I’m relaying new and profound insights here? Not really, you’ve surely arrived at these conclusions on your own. But the topic is of interest to me as I see more and more of my favorite small businesses go under due to what feels like an inevitable tide. The hurdle now, it seems to me, is how independent artists can make their work available via the internet in such a way that they make some reasonable money on the transaction – while at the same time figuring out some new presentation of their work such that it doesn’t get dismissed as amateur.
No real easy answers here, but I have a feeling we’ll be seeing some in the next several years.
I think niche appeal and artist-to-consumer marketing and sales (via the internet, of course) is probably going to be the wave of the future for artists of any kind outside the corporate world.
Free content (of practically every communication medium) via the internet has indeed disrupted the traditional model where primarily large conglomerates control and distribute product to consumers. And that has disrupted the traditional two-prong revenue stream that companies and creators depend on: advertising and subscriptions. Overconfidently dependent on advertising money, many newspapers, magazines, and television shows (for example) followed the wave and made their content available for free in order to gain viewers. With advertising dollars drying up in this recession the media groups are realizing that they gave away the farm and are now contemplating reinstating subscriptions for online viewers. They are having a hard time and will continue to struggle making money during this technilogicaly transitional age. Unfortunately, the issues are exacerbated for small presses and independent media companies. The answer, as mentioned above, is likely in the niche appeal of such media – but that still doesn’t answer the distribution question. Thanks for your article, Bill, and everyone’s thoughts. This is a very timely conversation. Lyn
I hope Lawrence’s statement that one magazine “is simply not answering subs or queries” isn’t aimed at us, but I’m afraid we at Murky Depths have been a bit remiss in that department this year. Mainly due to personal reasons that I won’t bore you with, but death, marriage and building sum them up. Our turnaround time for submissions at the moment can be anything from two days to eight months.
Any time spent away from pushing Murky Depths has a marked impression on sales and, like Kaolin and Fred, I find it frustrating that such good products are still unknown to the vast market that’s out there – and I do believe the market is easily big enough to take the diverse publications that you list here, Bill, as well as the hundreds that you’ll find at Ralan and Duotrope, which is where at least half of our site hits come from. The shout, of course, of “I told you so”, then goes up that it’s only writers who buy the mags. Wrong. Few of the writers who submit to us seem even bothered to read the guidelines let alone buy a copy, yet once contributors have received their contributor copies they quite often come back and buy later issues. But the question still remains: How do you reach that market? While Murky Depths is published in the UK it is mailed to all corners of the world, but our shipping costs to the USA are half again as much as the cover price. US publications should have a huge advantage over Murky Depths with a mainland audience that means far cheaper shipping costs yet we’re still receiving new subscriptions (and re-subscriptions) from the States (and other parts of the world).
I think there’s a lot more mileage for debate with the issue of small press. Distribution companies are either not interested (though some apologise guiltily) or want huge sums up front to minimise the risk. Risk? Gardners in the UK, who distribute to Waterstones, take 57% of the cover price, and then you’ve shipping costs on top – plus it’s sale or return! So I loose money on every copy that’s sold through Gardners, and a huge hit if they’re returned. How is that encouraging new ventures?
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